The Nordset farm was a relatively large farm. In its heyday there were 11 houses in two courtyards there. There is also evidence that the farm is very old. One might say that the history of Norway runs like a thread through the history of the Nordset farm. Our family however has lived there for only 120 years, from 1790, when our ancestor Paul Larsen Forseth (1762-1817) leased the Nordset farm, until 1910, when our great-grandfather Paul Andreas Arntsen Nordseth (1833-1910) died and his eldest daughter Kjerstina and her husband Ole Jonsen Østhus took over the lease on the Nordset farm.
In order to determine the antiquity of a farm in Norway the farm names have been classified by a prime word or by the ending. The ending –set/setr proves that the Nordset farm was cleared and in use sometime during the Viking Age (800-1050). In the “Klæbu Book II – History of Farms and Families” the author Ola Tulluan mentions that Viking tools have been found during excavations at the farm. The “Klæbu Book” also mentions that the Nordset farm probably was among the many farms in Klæbu which fell into disrepair after the “Black Death” which hit Norway in 1349 and lasted for several years reducing the Norwegian population by about 50%. Whole communities were lain waste. The farm was probably not cleared and used again before the early 1500’s.
Further more Ola Tulluan writes that according to legend there was once a chapel or church there, probably because the farm was owned by The Catholic Church during the Middle Ages (1050-1537) and was managed by the Elgeseter monastery in Trondheim which also had a mill by the Nordset waterfall. In later days a large sawmill was built there.
In 1537, when the Reformation was enacted in the Denmark-Norway Kingdom, all monastery estates were converted to properties of the Crown, and when the King took absolute power in 1660, the Nordset farm became part of “His Majesty’s Thrundhiembs Farm”
Since then the Nordset farm has been managed by farmers leasing the land. Ownership of the farm later changed because it was used as collateral for money loaned to the King by wealthy landowners. The Nordset farm had several private owners until 1764 when it was taken over by Thomas Angell and, together with other estates, was willed to the Thomas Angell’s Foundation, a charity in Trondheim. In 1970 the Nordset farm was the only leasehold farm in Klaebu.
The Nordset farm was divided into two equally large farms in 1774. The half which the Nordseth family eventually had at their disposal was never owned by anyone in our family, for reasons unknown.
The person who is regarded as our first ancestor, Paul Larsen Forseth, married Ingeborg Olsdatter Nordseth in 1790. She had the right of use of the Nordset farm at the time and her husband leased the farm the same year. In doing so, he “married himself” to the farm, as we say. This was a common practice, and in this way he acquired rights to the farm. His older brother Lars Larsen Forseth had inherited the Forseth farm as an allodium or “freehold estate”, so Paul, already an important member of the community, was in want of his own farm. Ingeborg died in childbirth the next year and Paul married Ane Katrine Arntsdatter Kvenild (1773-1852). They had 10 children.
Paul Larsen Forseth never called himself Nordseth. This surname came into use in our family in 1836 when his son Arnt Paulsen Nordseth (1803-1887) took over the lease on the farm. His descendants continued to use the Nordset(h) surname.
In the “Klæbu Book” the author writes that the name of the farm is Nordset, but at the same time he refers to professor of history Oluf Rygh, who in his book “Norwegian Farm Names” says that the name of our ancestral farm should be written without “d” (as dialect pronunciation in that region is “Nor’set”, and not “Nol’set” – with a thick “l”. He points out that the first part of the name stems from the word “nor” which means “narrow place in a river or creek” and says that the name of the farm must have come from the narrowing of the river Nidelven below the farm.
If this interpretation is right, the Nordset(h) family members in Norway have written their surname incorrectly for over 200 years (!) – although those of our family who emigrated to the USA have written their name correctly as “Norseth” (without the d).
On the other hand I like to point out that the Nordset farm is located farthest north of all farms in Klaebu, as far as I can see from the map in Tulluan’s book. One might then dare to presume that the first part of the name has to do with the location of the farm.
In early times it was customary to use the name of the farm one lived on at any given time as one’s surname, often together with a patronym, i.e. the father’s first name with the suffix –sen (son) or –datter (daughter). This led to some confusion as the surname could change several times during a person’s life according to where he resided. In 1923 the Act of Names became law and the concept of family name was adopted. Many chose to keep the name of the farm as their family name/surname, especially if the farm was owned by the family or the family had lived there for some time.
Some comments on the “h” at the end of the surname are helpful. During the 400 years Norway was a part of the Danish Kingdom it was customary to put an “h” after the “t” in names. The “h” was silent and had no influence on the pronunciation.
My grandfather Bernt Ludvig Paulsen Nordset (1883-1942) dropped the “h”. From what I have heard he believed that this was the most Norwegian way to write the name. He lived at a time when Norway had just broken away from Swedish rule and had become a sovereign state with its own King (Haakon VII in 1905). Like many Norwegians my grandfather probably wanted to demonstrate his patriotism. All his descendants have since written their surname “Nordset”.
Some might wonder what has become of the Nordset farm. A distant relative in Klæbu told me that sometime during the 1970/1980s “our” half of the farm was converted into a sandpit. This was closed down long ago and the area along the river Nidelven has been made a reserve for wild flora and fauna. I have been told that there are a lot of lilies of the valley there. The rest of the land was regulated for industry in 2008 by the local government. The other part of the farm was bought in 1932 and has been subdivided and sold as private properties.
So there is no longer any Nordset farm in Klæbu; only memories of an old, grand farm that once was the home of proud men and women. But the name lives on in Klæbu and various places around the world as our family has multiplied and moved on.
Prepared by Liv Nordset, November 2009 (assisted by Ken Westby)
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This page last modified: 26 February, 2012
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